Implementation arrangements. While foreign contractors were not attracted to the ICB (international competitive bidding) packages because of the location and limited time available to complete the rehabilitation works, national contractors were able to undertake civil work with a contract value of $1.5 million. Second, there was a high project administration burden associated with the large number of civil works contracts (there were 28 civil works contracts awarded through either NCB [national competitive bidding] or ICB, with an average contract amount of $0.7 million). If the civil works had been repackaged, with a value of $1.5 million per contract, the number of civil work contracts could have been reduced to 13. Third, involvement of PMO (project management office) staff - in the absence of the involvement of permanent executing agency and implementing agency staff with attractive salaries in the fields of procurement, economic and financial evaluations, social and environment safeguards, and financial management - will not improve institutional capacity of the executing agency and implementing agencies in these fields, and will perpetuate the need to establish a PMO for future projects. Fourth, although the project was the first ADB-financed flood-related project in Tajikistan implemented through three government agencies with an integrated approach and in partnership with the NGO (nongovernment organization) that implemented the JFPR (Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction) project, the integrated approach and good collaboration resulted in successful non-physical project outputs, for the project and successful community-level outputs for the JFPR project. In particular, it proved that community- level interventions can be carried out by NGO(s) if firm partnership mechanisms are developed during project preparation.
Khatlon Province Flood Risk Management Project